[B-Greek] Words for "to be amazed"
Carl W.Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Jan 25 06:31:01 EST 2007
On Jan 24, 2007, at 10:49 AM, Alan Terlep wrote:
> I have a question that illustrates why a little Greek is a good thing.
>
> I'm a new pastor (6 months in) with not enough Greek to feel
> confident. But I'm preparing a sermon on miracles and I want to focus
> on the reactions of the crowd to miracles. I note that there are
> several different words used to describe the "amazement" or
> "astonishment" that people feel when they witness miracles, and the
> English translations seem to use these words interchangeably. I can
> look them up in my BDAG but I would appreciate some input on the
> connotations of various words for "to be amazed."
>
> EKQAMAZW
should be EKQAUMAZW
> EKQAMBEW
> EXISTAW
should be EXISTAMAI/EXISTHMI
EKQAUMAZW: be utterly amazed (at) (1x, only in Mark)
Mark 12:17 (reaction to Jesus' statement about giving to Caesar and
to God)
EKQAMBEW: be amazed (3x, all in Mark)
Mark 9:15 (reaction of crowd seeing Jesus coming, crowd in midst of
dispute between scribes and J's disciples)
Mark 14:33 (in Gethsemane, 4 disciples taken along with Jesus are
surprised and anxious about it)
Mark 16:5 (women at the tomb react to seeing NEANISKON in tomb, are
bidden be him MH EKQAMBEISQE. But it's clear at the end of 16:8 that
the women are terrified by their experience)
EXISTAMAI/EXISTHMI: amaze, confuse (17x) EXISTAMAI, aor. EXESTHN is
the intransitive form meaning "be out of one's ordinary state of
mind" -- whether in a raving frenzy or in shock at some experience;
EXISTHMI, aor. EXESTHSA is the causative transitive form meaning "put
a person/people out of ordiary state of mind."
For my part I don't think there's much to be gained from the effort
to differentiate between these verbs, and I note that Louw & Nida
(§§25.206-222) indicate several other verbs, nouns, and adjectives
meaning "surprise" or "astonish" -- including (in addition to the
three asked about) XENIZOMAI, MEGAS ('surprising, srange'), QAMBOS,
QAMBEOMAI, EKQAMBEOMAI, EKQAMBOS, QAUMA, QAUMASIOS, EKSTASIS,
EKPLHSSOMAI, SUGCEW, STUGNAZW.
Gospel-narrative units about healing and other miraculous deeds of
Jesus (and/or his disciples) characteristically include explicit
comments regarding amazement of observers; so also there are
indications of amazement at Jesus' teaching. I'm not sure that one
can extract from all such notes much more than that these reactions
are all triggered by experiences that transcend people's normal
understanding and comfort-level and they all hint at the presence of
something either awesome or frightening -- whether in a positive or
in a negative way.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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